Pipeline (feat. Oddisee)

Comin' from nothin', try to see tomorrow
People feeling forced to steal 'cause they can't ask to borrow
We come from families where Pops never stayed around
Grew up on playgrounds where killers spray rounds

Complexes with regular SWAT takedowns
Streets covered in blood with cops who barely make rounds, that's why I write lines
Automatics circulate the pipeline
Lyricism that fight crime, follow the right signs

How can a mother watchin' bullets rain watch her son shine?
Most of us taught to shoot and steal, run from one time
A life in prison only take one crime, not one dime as we drop it
This the mentality needs stopping

It don't start at the home, it start in the street
Systemic redlining on which side gon' eat
If you had to shoot and steal just to get your next meal, you probably will
That's how the people where I'm from feel

All we know is what we know, they done fed us a pill
But when it comes to bullets on our block, we must appeal
They make us pick a side, no one to confide
When we young, they tell us we could be whatever, but they lied

People killin' over sex, drugs, money, women, and pride
This doesn't stop with the pipeline, it starts with the right time
To open up these young minds and system
Callin' community politicians to take people from beneath and put 'em in higher positions

This is your job to keep more alive
That's why I put the gat down and never glorify
Things that leave most families mortified, it starts at the bottom
Change the young man's mind and you got 'em

Don't just lock 'em up after you caught 'em, go and teach 'em to fish
If you won't do it, I'ma do it, I'ma reach 'em with this
I've been there, I seen drugs in the crib
Robbers and killers, cook crack at twelve years old

All the bullshit they instill us
Feel like all you know is all you got, but it's not
You are so much more than selling someone else's dope from the shore
With a promise that you'll never be poor, nothing but lies, homie

Put the gun down and rise, homie
If you seen the shit I did when I was young, you wouldn't know me
What I'm saying is ain't no one perfect
System is crooked, that's why you work

Sell a key and buy a house, chop a brick and get a grip
Man, that shit, it make me sick, it's like a blind man I'm trying to teach
But you better learn the language if you trying to reach
Too many people on the news, they just trying to preach

But they don't know 'bout what go down, homie
Put the gun down, homie, put the gun down

Put 'em down and get up, put 'em down and get up
This is motivator for the people that been fed up
Put 'em down and get up, put 'em down and get up
This is motivator for the people that never let up

Put 'em down and get up, put 'em down and get up
This is motivator for the people that been fed up
Put 'em down and get up, put 'em down and get up
This is motivator for the people that never let up

Reasons to live and reasons to kill
A fine line between alive and hope you leaving a will
So many lives paid the cost, we keep receipts in field
But still, Congress got no need for a bill

No traces, no faces, but the money is hard to hide
Stock prices rise at the rate of mother's cry
Hard to let it slide when they slid, you wanna ride
To live another day, you exist, but something died

My innocence was lost when I witnessed a brother lie
In front the house, his father bought, escaping the call of crime
You can't outrun a bullet, they don't wait at the border line
The county ain't no different, come to safety, we all deprived

Hagerstown to Waldorf, switches to sawed-off
The clip come with extensions, be more, but we all short
Let's all apply pressure on the state laws, don't let up
We all rise till the legislation's signed, get up

Put 'em down and get up, put 'em down and get up
This is motivator for the people that been fed up
Put 'em down and get up, put 'em down and get up
This is motivator for the people that never let up

Put 'em down and get up, put 'em down and get up
This is motivator for the people that been fed up
Put 'em down and get up, put 'em down and get up
This is motivator for the people that never let up